Record indicates 43 million Americans moving into

The government started keeping low income statistics in 1959. More individuals fell below the poverty line last year than ever in the time since. A Census Bureau report released Sept. 16 revealed that 43 million in the United States could be officially determined as living in poverty. That's 14.3 percent of the population, a jump from 13.2 percent in 2008. The poverty report is the latest in a long line of recent bad economic news Republicans are crowing about as the November election approaches. They will hope the electorate ignores a longer view of the low income rate. Statistics over the previous 10 years show that Republican policies played a role in the current increasing level. Liberals say the poverty rate underestimates the true level of economic misery. The other side has an opposite point of view. They say the low income line is an insufficient way to determine who's financially poor and who isn't. In response, government officials plan to use more detailed analysis for figuring out the true percentage of U.S. impoverished beginning in 2011.Post source

A low income rate increase was no surprise. Analysts were predicting the poverty rate would go up to 15 %. According to a Census Bureau official interviewed by CNN, a decline in elderly citizens falling below the low income threshold from 9.7 to 8.9 percent kept the poverty rate from ticking higher. The amount of cash necessary to maintain a minimum of material comfort is considered the low income threshold. Most individuals would think that the low income threshold comes nowhere close to making that possible. The Census Bureau has been using an established range. About $22,000 a year qualifies a family of four as poor.

Looking to determine poverty

About a half century ago government officials attempted to determine the income considered at the poverty level by using the least amount necessary to buy groceries. As reported by MSNBC, considerations as well as income must be added to the equation, experts say, to figure out how numerous within the United States of America are under the low income line. Poverty thresholds as they exist are out of touch with reality, Shawn Fremstad of the Center for Economic and Policy Research told MSNBC. For survival in current economic conditions, a family needs more than is presently stated. To more accurately calculate a poverty line, the government will incorporate additional factors into the equation, for example, low-income tax credits and job-related expenses. Fremstad suggested a metric depending on median income to show how financially poor individuals are doing compared to society at large. Median income in the United States of America was $49,777 last year.

Politicians use the financially poor to discredit opponents

Political pundits are saying that the poverty rate is an additional liability for the Obama administration and Democrats for the November midterm elections . But financial growth during the George W. Bush presidency was accompanied by an increasing low income rate. The Washington Independent reports that the low income level rose throughout the 2001 recession and continued afterward, according to testimony in Congress last year by Rebecca Blank of the Commerce Department. The poverty rate rose .08 percent during the 2000s expansion. A higher percentage of Americans were poor at the end of the expansion than at the beginning. The poverty increases through the great recession came on top of numbers already elevated by eight years of GOP economic policies.